The issue of whether fidayeen attacks are allowed
at all in Islam and of what their status is in the Shariah continues to be
hotly debated. However, these questions have not received the sort of
serious attention that they deserve from the ulema and other Islamic
intellectuals. In fact, much effort has been expended by a section of
Islamic scholars to seek to provide legitimacy to such attacks by drawing
from rules and details contained in the books of medieval fiqh, or
Muslim jurisprudence. These scholars have by and large based their opinion
on fidayeen attacks by focusing on the particular case of Palestine
where they believe that such attacks are the last resort by the
Palestinian resistance in the face of Israeli barbarism and aggression.
However, now that fidayeen attacks are no longer
confined only to Palestine and directed only at Israelis but have become a
global phenomenon targeting even Muslim countries and Muslim peoples, as
in the case of Pakistan, those who sought to provide legitimacy to such
actions are faced with a peculiar dilemma. It is true that prior to the
American aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, fidayeen attacks
by Muslim groups were confined only to Palestine. However, continued
American imperialist offensives, including America’s unstinting support to
the Israeli occupiers, have driven many Muslim youth to the wall, forcing
them to take to such radical steps as suicide bombings in utter
desperation. This must be recognised as the basic root of the phenomenon
of fidayeen attacks by Muslim groups that has now spread out from
Palestine to expand to other lands. Ultimately, the dominant western
powers, particularly America, are to blame for this development which they
berate as inhuman and cruel.
The fact of the matter is that these bombings are a result
of pent-up feelings of revenge in the face of intolerable oppression. At
the same time, it must also be recognised that seeking to right wrongs in
this manner has led to these Muslim groups exceeding the bounds of Islam
and morality. Hence it is crucial for Islamic scholars to seriously ponder
on the legitimacy of suicide bombings in Islam, especially since Muslim
groups who engage in such attacks often do so precisely in the name of
Islam and claim that in doing so they are acting according to Islamic
commandments.
In a range of countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Somalia and so on, the continuing wave of suicide attacks has not
received the approval of any noteworthy Islamic scholar to date. Thus such
attacks in Muslim-majority countries, in which the victims are mostly
Muslims, may be clearly said to be un-Islamic, according to the vast
majority of the ulema. The case is different however in Muslim lands under
non-Muslim occupation or with regard to suicide attacks against countries
that commit aggression against Muslims and/or Islam. Those ulema who
regard such attacks as a legitimate response to aggression and oppression
regard them as permissible actions in the course of jihad. They view them
as legitimate acts of defence and as a powerful deterrent.
For this they use the fiqh principle al-inghimas
fi al-aduve, which means ‘to enter the ranks of the enemy and attack’
so as to inflict damage on the enemy. They argue that if such actions,
which might well cause the death of the attackers themselves, can help to
put an end to aggression and war or can serve the larger interests of
Islam, they are permissible. If the death of the attackers is certain,
they do not consider such actions as tantamount to suicide which is
sternly forbidden in Islam. To further back their stance, they invoke the
fiqh principle according to which if some enemy forces use some
Muslims as human shields (tatarus) in such a way that if the enemy
is attacked the death of the human shields is also certain, to attack the
enemy is permissible if this serves the greater good and the larger
purposes of Islam. In such a case, the death of the human shields would be
treated as an unavoidable loss.
In contrast, other Islamic scholars regard attacks and
bombings by Muslims in which the attackers are certain to lose their lives
as wholly illegitimate and even forbidden, or haram. Numerous contemporary
Saudi ulema, including the late Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ibn Baz, Sheikh
Nasiruddin Albani, Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Saleh Al-Uthaymeen, Sheikh Saleh
Al-Fawzan and the present grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Azeez
Aal Ash-Shaikh, fall into this category. These ulema regard even such
attacks in occupied Palestine as suicide attacks and hence as illegitimate
in Islam. Obviously then, fidayeen attacks in other countries,
including Muslim countries, would, according to this view, be even more
illegitimate. These scholars refer to verses in the Koran and references
in the Hadith that clearly declare suicide as haram in order to condemn
such attacks as illegitimate in Islam, as, for instance, the Koranic
commandment: “make not your own hands contribute to [your] destruction”
(2:195) and the statement of the prophet, as contained in the Sahih al-Bukhari,
according to which what a person uses to kill himself will be used to
punish him.
Undeniably, the position of those who declare fidayeen
attacks as illegitimate is, on every count, much closer to the Koran and
the Hadith and to the spirit of the Shariah than those who consider such
attacks as permissible. The verses in the Koran and the references in the
Hadith that condemn suicide provide clear, direct and obvious arguments (mohkam
dalail) and the commandment of the Shariah in this regard can be
easily understood from the ‘direct texts’ (dalat an-nass). In
contrast, the position of those who regard such attacks as legitimate is
based on arguments that are not absolutely evident. Rather, their
arguments are indirect and ambiguous (mutashabeh dalail). According
to the principles of Muslim jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh), such
arguments must be interpreted, elaborated upon and clarified in the light
of clear, direct and obvious arguments from the scriptures.
In this regard, those who legitimise such attacks seek to
draw analogies with cases considered permissible in the books of
traditional fiqh, such as entering the ranks of the enemy to
destroy them and oneself for the greater good or inflicting grave damage
on the enemy even if this means the loss of life of innocents used by the
enemy as human shields. This however is not proper or justified. What
their supporters hail as ‘martyrdom operations’ and their critics as
‘suicide bombings’ cannot be regarded as permissible analogies of these
instances described and legitimised in the books of medieval fiqh.
Those who enter the ranks of the enemy without caring
about their own lives are not killed at their own hands, which is the case
in suicide, but rather are slain by their enemies. Killing human shields
is regarded as permissible in the fiqh tradition only if and when
there is no other way out, when the benefit of this course of action is
clear and obvious and when such action is sanctioned by the imam or
leader. For this rule to apply, it is imperative that the Muslims be
engaged in a genuine jihad in the path of god (jihad fi sabilillah)
for the sake of the protection and promotion of the faith. Such actions
are wholly impermissible if committed for communal or worldly purposes. It
is obvious that an oppressed people must defend themselves from aggression
but to use the argument that attacking human shields is permissible in
order to hit at the enemy in order to legitimise fidayeen attacks
is in general not permissible unless, of course, defence against the enemy
is not possible without this or if by doing so a greater evil is avoided.
As the noted classical Islamic scholar Imam Qurtubi writes
in his book Al-Jami li Ahkam al-Koran: “Sometimes the killing of a
human shield (tatarus) is permissible […] and this is when the
benefit of this action is certain and complete, when it is not possible to
attack the aggressor without attacking the human shield and also when [the
benefit of this action] is absolute with regard to the entire community
[…] Our ulema are unanimous on the legitimacy of this matter provided that
these conditions are met […]”
The stringent conditions that Imam Qurtubi has laid down
for the permissibility of killing human shields if this becomes
unavoidable in order to take on the aggressor do not appear to apply in
the case of present-day fidayeen attacks. However, in defence of
such attacks, some scholars and others claim that they are permissible
because they are resorted to for noble aims. In response, one can argue
that this claim is an obvious contradiction of the fiqh rule: “No
aim, no matter how lofty, can justify the use of any wrongful means (al-ghayatu
la tubarrirul wasilah).”
In this regard, it is crucial to note that all over the
world, including in Palestine, wherever such fidayeen attacks are
being undertaken by Muslim groups, generally in the name of Islam, it is
the Muslims who suffer the most – not just in terms of loss of life but
also in the form of heightened anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim sentiments
which such attacks inevitably provoke. Numerous fidayeen attacks by
Palestinian groups in Israel have only made the Israelis even more violent
and aggressive, provoking them to stage revenge attacks that have caused
the deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinians. In other words, such
attacks have proven to be counterproductive from the Muslim point of view.
There is yet another reason why such attacks are
impermissible. Those who participate in fidayeen attacks present
themselves before other people as ordinary, unarmed people with no violent
aim or intention although they are heavily armed and their sole objective
is to inflict violence and cause death and destruction. This is, needless
to say, a form of cheating which is incompatible with Islamic rules
governing the conduct of the affairs of war.
In this connection, it is undeniable that contemporary
Islamic political thought in general is characterised by great confusion
and extremism. The noted Egyptian Islamic scholar Allama Yusuf Al-Qaradawi,
who argues that fidayeen attacks in Palestine are legitimate,
discusses this aspect of marked imbalance in current Islamic political
thought in great detail in his recently published book Fiqh al-Jihad
(‘Jurisprudence of Jihad’). This imbalance, the lack of proper religious
awareness among ongoing Islamic movements and the vast number of Muslim
youth who are fired by emotionalism make it impossible for fidayeen
attacks to abide by the rules and restrictions laid down in the Shariah.
Thus numerous Arab ulema who had regarded fidayeen
attacks in Palestine as permissible and even considered all Israeli
citizens as legitimate targets (muharib or ‘rebels’), when faced
with the reality that today more such attacks are occurring in Pakistan
than in Palestine, are now loudly condemning such attacks as impermissible
‘strife on earth’ (fasad fi al-arz), which the Koran sternly
condemns, and a grave danger to the Muslims themselves.
As regards all matters, including the vexed issue of
fidayeen strikes, it is absolutely necessary to consider not just the
present context but also present and possible future consequences of
actions. Lamentably, our ulema have not devoted any attention at all to
developing a ‘fiqh of consequences’ (fiqh ul-maal) and a
‘future-oriented fiqh’ (fiqh al-mustaqbaliyat). However,
this is really necessary in order to develop rules and issue fatwas
regarding the permissibility or impermissibility of certain actions
keeping in mind their possible consequences.
Seen in this light, one can argue that the fatwas that
have been issued in favour of fidayeen attacks, even in the context
of Palestine, are wholly incorrect because, as has been indicated above,
the radical Muslim movements active today that claim to be engaged in
protecting Islam or enforcing the Shariah are based not so much on a
proper understanding of Islamic teachings as on passion and emotionalism
and a profound and pervasive desire for revenge. They are in general
ignorant of, or insensitive to, the difference between what is legitimate
in Islam and what is not, particularly on issues related to violence. This
lamentable state of affairs calls for serious introspection and for a
proper ascertainment of methods and priorities on their part.
In actual fact, the opinion of the Saudi ulema who I
referred to earlier, who condemn all forms of fidayeen attacks, is
the right one and is, I believe, in accordance with the spirit and rules
of the Shariah.